


Hold On to Sleep

by StaticPhantom



Series: Paradise Motel Week (Killjoynest) [7]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Cherri's not looking so hot, Hurt, M/M, Vomit Mention, no one is okay in this situation, sibling gang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26589226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StaticPhantom/pseuds/StaticPhantom
Summary: Prompt Day 7: Free ChoiceA continuation of yesterday's work.Kobra would never admit that he's not better off alone.
Relationships: Agent Cherri Cola & NewsAGoGo (Danger Days), Agent Cherri Cola/Kobra Kid (Danger Days)
Series: Paradise Motel Week (Killjoynest) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925404
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	Hold On to Sleep

Kobra was used to pain. He’d been shot and beaten up more times than he could count. The feeling of blood trickling down the back of his throat after a fistfight was all too familiar. He had been battered and bruised as a result of his own actions time and time again, but nothing had hurt like this before.

Twenty minutes, that was what Newsie had said. An alarm clock, its face cracked and scratched up from years of being knocked off the cabinet on which it stood, mocked him with the knowledge that he had only waited for a quarter of that time. 

Every second dragged on in Kobra’s mind, each moment when he couldn’t be sure of whether Cherri was okay, whether he was… He refused to let his mind even consider it for a second, channeling his fear into a forced kind of peacefulness. 

Time ticked by, drumming its painful rhythm through his skull and scratching at the thoughts to which he refused to give any consideration. If looks could kill, the small clock would have shattered into deadly shards of metal and glass under Kobra’s stony glare. Maybe for the best, he told himself. At least then there would be something, anything else to focus on.

He sat, helpless, under a crackling fluorescent light in the narrow hallway. Quiet panic and furious determination crashed together, locked in a fervent battle in his mind. 

Splinters dug into Kobra’s fingernails as he gripped the arms of the creaky, rotting wooden chair on which he sat. He squeezed his eyes closed. Every thought was too much to bear. If he relaxed his focus for even a moment his head writhed with images which pumped pure rage through every artery in his body. 

Kobra didn’t register the relentless ticking of the clock, nor the dry wooden pole which had snapped in his hand until he forced his eyes open, unable to watch the scenes playing out in his twisting mind. He drew his gaze purposefully towards the alarm clock. 

Five minutes. Then he would know if Cherri was okay, if Newsie’s choked words over the radio’s static had warranted the amount of terror which they had shot into his pounding heart.

If he had been more like Jet or Ghoul, Kobra would have stayed in the broadcasting studio with Dr. D after giving him what pitiful amount of news he was able to deliver. He had worked for years to convince himself that he was better suited to loneliness in times of distress. To his annoyance, even Kobra’s level of stubbornness couldn’t alter the truth of his nature. 

He needed people. 

Being alone only left him space to fill with anger towards everything he couldn’t change. It was exhausting to live with the remnants of mental programming his head didn’t even have the manners to remember going through. He knew that any minor disturbance flicked a switch somewhere in his brain. It was as though a heat-sensitive lens had been slotted over his mind, showing every problem he had encountered throughout his life in stark contrast to the world around him.

After seeing the shock on Jet’s face at the bruise which had begun to blossom across her shoulder, Kobra had started spending exponentially less time at the diner. Jet called it coping, Ghoul called it cowardice. Poison refused to comment on their brother’s desperate brawls- they barely looked at him when he returned as the sun rose, sporting a new injury every time. 

Guilt pooled in Kobra’s stomach as he heard the rumble of the radio van approaching. How could he think so hard about himself when Cherri was outside, his condition unknown to anyone but Newsie. 

He allowed the thought he had repressed since ending the radio connection between him and Newsagogo almost an hour ago. 

Cherri could be gone. Ghosted, dusted, taken by the Witch. Whatever the fuck you wanted to call it, they all meant the same thing.

Cherri’s heart could have stopped beating while Kobra had sat in a fucking chair, staring at a fucking clock, thinking about his own fucking problems. 

He stood quickly, forcing the top half of his body to catch up. His brain, which had been buzzing for the last hour, now felt as though it had left his head and floated up to watch him from the ceiling.

His legs carried his body forwards with jerking, near-robotic movements. Each step was calculated, and the line of travel he was following ended in sync with a mechanical shudder and soft metallic clicks from outside. 

Kobra was sucked back into his body by Newsie’s cry. He forced himself to focus, his thoughts still blurry and disconnected. He concentrated on the thumping of his boots on the concrete floor, the creak of the door as he pushed it open, the rush of heat from the blinding sun as he ran towards the graffitied van and Newsie’s fear-stricken face.

Her hands were clenched around the steering wheel, her knuckles whiter than the scars across Kobra’s lip. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the seat beside her. He stopped before the van, his chest tightening as though someone had tied a rope around it and dragged him across the sand. 

He tried to speak, to give Newsie something to hear other than the blood rushing through her head, but his throat wouldn’t allow it. She looked at him with a gaze he knew all too well. In her eyes, he saw Poison’s despair when one of Ghoul’s ‘experiments’ had covered half his body in burns and knocked him out for a week.

Instinct and routine brought Kobra to Newsie’s door, his boots sinking into the sand as he pulled it open and stood uncomfortably still beside her. Her head dropped to rest between her hands at the top of the steering wheel, her back hunched after an hour of driving with every muscle engaged, holding her together. Kobra moved forwards and put an arm over Newsie’s back in an awkward attempt to comfort her. 

He drew it away when Newsie sat up, pried her fingers from the wheel, and steeled herself against the guilt flooding through her every nerve. She nodded at Kobra, and jumped carefully from the van, rolling her ankle slightly on the soft sand even so.

They didn’t need to speak. From the second Newsie touched the door handle, Kobra knew the plan. He stood just behind the door’s opening, heat radiating onto his face from the hot metal. Newsie swallowed, closed her eyes, and opened the door. 

Kobra’s arms moved of their own accord as Cherri’s pale body fell from the van. If he had been in full control of his movements, Kobra’s limbs would have remained frozen in place at the small glimpse he caught of mangled, blistered skin. 

He reached out and wrapped his arms around Cherri’s unconscious form, clutching him close to his own body if only to feel the faint heartbeat thumping alongside his own. Kobra didn’t let go, fearing that he pulse would cease to exist if he couldn’t feel it in his own chest.

“We need to get him inside, Kobra.” Newsie lifted Cherri by the legs, the toes of his boots brushing against the ground as she did so. Kobra looked away before his body turned, displaying the flash rash which adorned the entire right side of Cherri’s head.

His body felt ten times heavier now than it ever had before, even with two people sharing the weight. They struggled through the door and burst into the closest room, in which D was still broadcasting his thoughts to the Zones. His eyes widened at the sight of the two ‘Joys struggling with Cherri’s limp body as they placed him gently on his armchair.

“Well, Motorbabies, Crash Queens, nameless Runners with your guts and your guns, I’m gonna leave y’all to enjoy a classic from Mad Gear and The Missile Kid.” 

Dr. D’s calm voice conflicted against his fearful eyes and hands which tapped gently against the armrest of his wheelchair. He slid a switch to mute himself from the transmission before wheeling around to face Newsie’s fidgeting hands and Kobra’s tense shoulders. 

“Y’ need to leave, I’m sorry. Y’all’re no help if you’re frozen.” 

Kobra nodded curtly, his mouth a straight line cut into his face, forcing down the bile which rose into his throat as the image of Cherri’s head flashed across his vision.

Newsie lingered, “I can’t, D. ‘S’all my fault.”

“You can tell me what happened later, Newsie. Y’need someone conscious right now, and he needs someone too, even if he won’ admit it.” 

She made her way towards the doorframe, her gaze trailing away from Cherri as if her eyes could keep him alive if she only kept looking. 

Kobra was stood, stock still and staring at the blank, pale yellow wall of the corridor. 

“He’s gonna be okay.” Newsie whispered, not quite sure who she was trying to convince.

Kobra just nodded. He didn’t cry, The Kobra Kid had never cried as far as anyone outside the Fab Four (and Cherri) knew.

“Fuckin’ better be,” he muttered, his voice cracking. 

“Nothin’ we can do. Just pray to Witch he makes it.” She sighed, the hard leather of her jacket creaking as she leaned back against the wall. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

“You did that shit?”

Newsie just nodded in response, forcing her eyelids together as the tears she had held back since the clap spilled onto her face. 

“News?” 

“Yea?” her voice trembled as a pair of arms wrapped her up in a hug which felt like Cherri’s voice on a dark night- something to cling to while the world tumbled to pieces   
around you.

“’S gonna be okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm probably going to make this into a mid-length fic because of Self Indulgence, but there you have it, folks. These prompts were really fun (if a little stressful) to write and I hope you enjoyed coming along for the ride.


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